On Oct. 9, ESA juniors started its annual Waste Diversion Program, which is a program that attempts to separate lunch waste efficiently, according to Christopher Johnston, an ESA English teacher who is the faculty liaison.

During lunch, ESA juniors separate lunch waste into three food share bins: compost, recycling, and landfill. They also help guide students where their food waste should go.

“Food scraps without any plastic covering should go into the compost. Plastic scraps such as forks, straws, and condiment pouches go into the landfill,” said ESA junior Mohamed Alawdi. “Finally your cardboard tray belongs in the recycling bin or gets stacked up.”

“The program started more than five years ago. It goes from October to the end of the school year,” said Johnston. “ I hope for students become more environmentally conscious [from the program].”

According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency website, about 258 million tons of waste was produced in 2014 and over 89 million tons of waste was composted and recycled. Every year, Americans produce approximately 254 million tons of trash.

In the future, Johnston and ESA environmental science teacher David Mangiante hope to do a waste audit in order to figure out what waste students are producing and how to minimize waste.

“I think the extra help that ESA kids are providing is great,” said sophomore Anna Cai. “Some students don’t even know where their milk carton or pizza crust go!”